Environmental Justice (EJ) is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement
of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with
respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental
laws, regulations, and policies.

Fair treatment means that no group of
people, including any racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic group, should bear
a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting
from industrial, municipal and commercial operations or the execution
of federal, state, local, and tribal programs and policies.

Meaningful
involvement means that potentially affected community residents have an appropriate opportunity
to participate in decisions about a proposed activity that will affect
their environment and/or health. This is important because the public's contribution can influence the regulatory agency's decision. An agency should strive to facilitate the involvement of those
potentially affected and ensure the concerns of all participants involved will be considered in the
decision making process.

Region 2 EJ Action Plan: Administrator McCarthy has made “Making a Visible Different in Communities across the Country” a major priority in her administration and has called on the EPA to consider “the impacts of our decisions on environmental justice communities”. Region2 Administrator Judith Enck answers this call by issuing the Region 2 Environmental Justice Action Plan[PDF 651K, 66 pp], the Region’s roadmap for achieving environmental justice throughout its functions. The regional action plan tracks EPA’s Plan EJ 2014’s five areas of cross-agency focus, four areas of tools development, and program initiatives and tailors them with Region 2 specific initiatives. In order to ensure progress toward the goals of each initiative, regional programs will annually identify a set of EJ commitments[PDF 149K, 13 pp]which will in turn be reported on and evaluated each fiscal year.

Region 2 Interim Environmental Justice Policy(December 2000): Region 2's Interim Environmental Justice Policy addresses the requirements of President Clinton's Executive Order #12898[PDF 122K, 6 pp] and method Region 2 staff are expected to use when evaluating and assessing environmental justice concerns in the region's communities. The policy is also available as a PDF. [PDF 511K, 56 pp]